End Prison Indus. Complex v. King Cnty.

431 P.3d 998

END PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, Respondent,

v.KING COUNTY, Petitioner.

NO. 95307-4

Supreme Court of Washington.

Argued: October 18, 2018

Filed DECEMBER 27, 2018

David J. Hackett, Janine Elizabeth Joly, Thomas William Kuffel, King County Administration Building, 500 4th Avenue, Suite 900, Seattle, WA 98104-2316, Paul J. Lawrence, Shae Blood, Kymberly Kathryn Evanson, Pacifica Law Group LLP, 1191 2nd Avenue, Suite 2000, Seattle, WA 98101-3404, for Petitioner

Eric D. ‘Knoll’ Lowney, Claire Elizabeth Tonry, Smith & Lowney PLLC, 2317 E. John Street, Seattle, WA 98112-5412, for Respondent

Devon Carroll Knowles, Washington Appellate Project, 1511 3rd Avenue, Suite 610, Seattle, WA 98101-1683, for Amicus Curiae (King County Taxpayers)

Reid Hay, Benton County Prosecutor's Office, 7122 W. Okanogan Place, Kennewick, WA 99336-2359, for Amicus Curiae (Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys)

Daniel Brian Heid, Reynolds Burton, 1219 Cole Street, Enumclaw, WA 98022-2636, Josh Weiss, Gordon Thomas Honeywell Governmental Affairs, 1201 Pacific Avenue, Suite 2100, Tacoma, WA 98402-4314, Erik J. Lamb, City of Spokane Valley, 10210 E. Sprague Avenue, Spokane, Valley WA 99206-3682, Alan L. Miles, Kitsap County Prosecutor's Office, 614 Division Street, Port Orchard, WA 98366-4614, for Amici Curiae (Washington State Association of Counties, Washington State Association of Municipal Attorneys)

GORDON McCLOUD, J.

¶ 1 End Prison Industrial Complex (EPIC) argues that the ballot title for a King County property tax increase lacked information required by former RCW 84.55.050 (2012).¹ To resolve that dispute, the court must compare the ballot title to that measure it describes—King County Ordinance 17304—to see if the title lacks some description of the ordinance that former RCW 84.55.050 requires. But RCW 29A.36.090 provides that ballot title objections must be raised within 10 days of the public filing of that ballot title. We therefore hold that EPIC’s claim, which it brought nearly 4 years after the ballot title at issue in this case was filed, is untimely.²

¶ 2 We reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and affirm the judgment of the superior court.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

I. King County’s Proposed Tax Increase and Its Ballot Title

¶ 3 The King County Council (Council) adopted Ordinance 17304 in April 2012. Clerk’s Papers (CP) at 88-95. That ordinance authorized a special election for King County voters to decide whether to increase property taxes by a levy lid lift. Id. As described in Ordinance 17304, the levy lid lift would increase the property taxes for nine years as follows:

a regular property tax levy in excess of the levy limitation contained in chapter 84.55 RCW for nine consecutive years, commencing in 2012, with collection beginning in 2013, at a rate in the first year not to [sic] $0.07 per one thousand dollars of assessed value. In accordance with RCW 84.55.050, this levy shall be a regular property tax levy, subject to the statutory rate limit of [former] RCW 84.52.043 [ (2012) ].

Id. at 92.

¶ 4 Former RCW 29A.36.071(1) (2012) provides that the King County prosecuting attorney must draft the ballot title for any measure going to county voters.³ The Council nonetheless suggested its own ballot title in Ordinance 17304. The Council’s suggested ballot title stated:

The King County council has passed Ordinance [17304] concerning funding for a replacement facility for the Children and Family Justice Center. This proposition would authorize King County to levy an additional property tax to provide funding for capital costs to replace the Children and Family Justice Center, which serves the justice needs of children and families. It would authorize King County to levy an additional regular property tax of $0.07 per $1,000 of assessed valuation for collection in 2013. The 2013 levy amount would become the base upon which levy increases would be computed for each of the eight succeeding years, all as provided in Ordinance [17304 ]. Should this proposition be:

Approved? ________

Rejected? ________

Id. at 93 (emphasis added).

¶ 5 The prosecuting attorney did not follow the Council’s suggested language word for word. Instead, he drafted the following ballot title for Ordinance 17304’s proposed levy lid lift:

Proposition No. 1

Children and Family Services Center Capital Levy

The King County council passed Ordinance No. 17304 concerning a replacement facility for juvenile justice and family law services. This proposition would authorize King County to levy an additional property tax for nine years to fund capital costs to replace the Children and Family Justice Center, which serves the justice needs of children and families. It would authorize King County to levy an additional regular property tax of $0.07 per $1,000 of assessed valuation for collection in 2013. Increases in the following eight years would be subject to the limitations in chapter 84.55 RCW, all as provided in Ordinance No. 17304. Should this proposition be:

? Approved

? Rejected

Id. at 251 (Ex. G; voters' pamphlet excerpt) (boldface omitted) (emphasis added).

¶ 6 Even so, RCW 29A.36.090 ’s 10-day objection period passed in June 2012 with no objections.

¶ 7 Then, at the August 2012 election, a majority of King County voters approved the proposed levy lid lift. And in 2013, King County began assessing and collecting a property tax levy in accordance with Ordinance 17304 and in excess of its preelection levy lid. Id. at 270 (Ex. I; election results), 277-81 (Decl. of Hazel Gantz).

¶ 8 For 2013, King County added the rate of $0.07 per $1,000.00 of assessed valuation to its previous overall rate and multiplied the new combined rate by the total value of taxable property. Id. at 278-79. That calculation produced the new total permissible levy dollar amount, and King County proceeded to levy almost exactly that amount. Id.

¶ 9 For the following years, King County multiplied the 2013 levy dollar amount by the standard statutory growth limit of 101 percent to produce the year’s new total permissible levy dollar amount. Id. at 280; see also RCW 84.55.010 (imposing limit factor on levy increases), .005(2) (generally defining "limit factor" as 101 percent). King County again proceeded to levy nearly that amount. CP at 280 (Decl. of Gantz).

¶ 10 King County plans to proceed in that fashion for the remainder of the nine years of the levy lid lift. Id. at 281. When the nine years have passed, the levy lid will "revert," according to King County, to what it would have been had voters not lifted the lid in 2012. Id. ; see also former RCW 84.55.050(5). That is, King County plans to compute its 2022 levy as though it had just been applying the 101 percent growth rate to its levy lid every year since 2012. CP at 281 (Decl. of Gantz).

II. EPIC’s Lawsuit against King County

¶ 11 In April 2016, EPIC sued King County over its implementation of the levy lid lift. EPIC acknowledged that King County had lawfully assessed increased property taxes pursuant to the levy lid lift in the lift’s first year, 2013. Id. at 8-10 (Compl.). EPIC instead argued that King County’s assessment of increased property taxes from 2014 onward was unlawful. Id. at 10-11. EPIC contended that the ballot title for the levy lid lift omitted a piece of information that former RCW 84.55.050 required: an express statement that the 2013 levy would form the basis for computing levies for the following eight years of the lid lift. Id. at 9-11. EPIC argued that the statement that the Council had included in its suggested ballot title—"[t]he 2013 levy amount would become the base upon which levy increases would be computed for each of the eight succeeding years, all as provided in Ordinance [17304]," Id. at 93 (Ordinance 17304)—would have satisfied former RCW 84.55.050 ’s express-statement requirement. Id. at 10 (Compl.). But it concludes that the prosecutor’s decision to omit that phrase from the official ballot title deprived King County of the authority to assess increased property taxes beyond 2013. EPIC asked the superior court to declare the assessment of the increased property taxes from 2014 onward unlawful and to enjoin their assessment going forward. Id. at 15-16.

¶ 12 King County moved for summary judgment of dismissal. It argued that EPIC’s claim was most properly characterized as a challenge to Ordinance 17304’s ballot title and, hence, that it was untimely under RCW 29A.36.090 ’s 10-day time limit for objecting to ballot titles. Id. at 36-59 (King County’s Mot. for Summ. J.). EPIC responded that RCW 29A.36.090 did not apply because its claim did not accrue until King County assessed increased property taxes in the second year of the levy lid lift, 2014, when "King County began to act inconsistently with the ballot title approved by voters." Id. at 374 (EPIC’s response). Thus, EPIC characterized its claim not as a ballot title objection to which RCW 29A.36.090 applied but as an effort to enforce substantive limitations supposedly created by the wording of the ballot title as opposed to the language of Ordinance 17304. Id.

¶ 13 The superior court agreed with King County and dismissed EPIC’s claim as untimely. Id. at 478 (order). The Court of Appeals reversed. End Prison Indus. Complex v. King County, 200 Wash. App. 616, 402 P.3d 918 (2017). We granted review. End Prison Indus. Complex v. King County, 190 Wash.2d 1007, 414 P.3d 576 (2018).

ANALYSIS

¶ 14 There is no dispute about the timing or sequence of events here. Instead, the parties contest whether EPIC’s claim is subject to RCW 29A.36.090 ’s 10-day time limit on ballot title objections. That is a purely legal question that we review de novo.⁴

I. RCW 29A.36.090 Requires Objectors To File Their Ballot Title Challenges within 10 Days

¶ 15 A ballot title must meet certain accuracy and clarity requirements in the way that it informs voters about the underlying proposed measure. RCW 29A.36.071 ; RCW 29A.72.050. A ballot title for a levy lid lift must meet certain additional...